Origin of religious positions and title

Facts about Position/Title

Date Founded	692 CE	Place Founded	Constantinople
Founder(s)	Byzantine Emperor Justinian II (685-711)
Etymology	From the Greek Patriarchos meaning "father"
Original Function	The official title originally given to five senior Christian bishops- Constantinople, Ravenna, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.
Superior Position(s)	Primate (of Constantinople)
Inferior Position(s)	Bishop

Byzantine Emperor Justinian II (685-711) issued an Imperial Order to all Christian sects at the Council of Trullo in 692 to a new structure in recognition of the growing independence and wealth of certain churches. Emperor Justinian introduced at this Council the concept of the Patriarch, a title he bestowed to the heads of five churches namely Constantinople, Ravenna, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.

Justinian then appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople the additional title and honor of Primate (from Latin Primus meaning first and "above all others") in recognition of Constantinople being the centre of Christian power since 325. This model then went on to become known as the "Pentarchy".

Background

It was recorded as historic fact and without dispute that the single most powerful bishop of early Christianity remained the head of the Christian Church of Constantinople from 325 to 1100.

Contrary to the unyielding revisionism that has usually originated from Rome, Rome during the first six centuries of Christianity was universally considered inferior to Constantinople -- and at times was without a bishop and at other periods actually rejected christianity and reverted back to a completely pagan city.

As proof, the Council of Chalcedon under Emperor Marcian in 451 CE re-affirmed the sedes (throne) of Constantinople as having primacy above all other Christian sects. Since then, the word "sedes" has been deliberately and incorrectly altered to the concept of "see" - a concept that was not formally introduced until the 12th century.

The title patriarch came about when the Imperial government proposed an organization for a universal Christendom that was composed of five patriarchal sees (Ravenna, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, known as the pentarchy). This was done under the auspices of a single universal empire as formulated in the legislation of Emperor Justinian II, especially in his Novella 131.

Rome was never one of the original patriachial "sedes" -- as the official Byzantine religious and spiritual centre in Italy at the time remained Ravenna, not Rome. This, not insignificant fact has not stopped Roman revisionism of historical artefacts to claim Rome was one of the original five- despite all evidence to the contrary and common sense.

Having received formal ecclesiastical sanction at the Council of Trullo (held in 692), the name "patriarch" became the official title for the Bishops of these sedes.

The title "Exarch" remained the proper style for metropolitans who ruled over the three remaining (political) dioceses of Diocletian's division of the Eastern Prefecture. These were the Exarchs of Asia (at Ephesus), of Cappadocia and Pontus (at Caesarea), and of Thrace (at Heraclea Sintica).


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